Thiago Maia plays as a defensive midfielder who plays for Santos FC. He tends to move clubs at the beginning at the game so you'll have to put in a bid very quickly to be able to secure his services. On my save Sevilla FC bought him for £7.5Million but you might be able to get him for as cheap as £3.5Million. In 2020 on my save his overall value is £40.5Million so a great player if your wanting to play a long game.

As you'd expect from any defensive midfielder his attributes are spread out without any outstanding attributes but he does reach high figures in marking, positioning, tackling by 2020. His physical attributes of natural fitness, stamina and strength are also very good by 2020.

He has an average rating of 7.05 with 169 appearances. In that time he has scored 16 goals and assisted 28. He gets involved in goal opportunities which is great to see from a defensive midfielder.

Update: In my new save I tried to tap the player up using the media but Santos FC quickly tied him down with a new contract so he ended up costing me £13 Million, this was right at the beginning of the game. It might be worth being a bit more tactful if you want to save yourself a bit of money. His contract requests started at £12,000 so he still represents value for money for my game. There was also no problems getting him a work permit as it was granted first time around.